A lot of 'ifs'

Placing women in combat is a risky decision

If the reason for it is to have the best fighters possible on the battlefield. There should be absolutely no other consideration, especially if it’s feel-good, look-good social engineering.

If the Armed Forces aren’t just being cajoled into it in order to win political points for the Obama administration.

If the requirements to get there are gender-neutral and not in any way watered down to get a particular result. As a military friend told us, “the tests should be real and should include dragging a wounded 200-pound buddy and stacking 150-pound ammunition crates, and road marching 15 miles in four hours with a 100-pound ruck.”

If civilian notions of decorum, including privacy, don’t follow the women onto the battlefield. We don’t need lawsuits over the failure to accommodate civilian sensibilities in war.

If it doesn’t adversely affect the world’s premier fighting force in any way.

Some would add: if girls are required to register for the draft. Equality is equality, isn’t it?

Most important, having women in combat is fine as long as none is taken prisoner and sexually assaulted by the amoral savages we’re fighting.

That’s a big if. Does America have the stomach to watch its women be treated in such a manner?

As far as requiring girls to register for the draft when they turn 18, one academic tells TheChristian Science Monitor that’s an easy question:

“The answer to that question is clearly yes,” says Anne Coughlin, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. “The legal argument is clear: If it comes to that kind of wrenching emergency where we have to press young people into service, there is no legal justification for saying that men alone need to shoulder that burden.”

On the one hand, there’s no doubt that some women today are as tough and capable as many men. And there’s a little satisfaction to be found in the thought of some women-hating radical Muslims having their rear ends booted by a combat-ready American woman.

But overall, this step is as risky a policy change as our Armed Forces have taken in years, perhaps decades.

We will just have to trust that the generals who approve it actually do approve of it, and that they’re right in their assessments of it.

It makes for a stimulating debate, of course, and the topic instantly hit the top of the news and the cable debating societies.

Yet, with the nagging sensation that it’s a mistake placed firmly in the back of our minds, may we suggest it’s time to turn our attention back to fixing this economy and this government?

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I truly love women and have the greatest respect for them. They are far superior to men in many areas. But we need to recognize that women have equal rights but men and women are not created equal. This editorial is right on target. Back when they started letting women become firefighters, they lowered the standard to allow dragging victims by their heels instead of having to lift and carry. So it became OK to drag someone by their heels down stairs while the victim's head bangs on each step, inflicting injury to head and neck that wasn't present before the drag. I remember when they started letting women run police beats and a lady friend, wife of a cop, told me she hated it because when the chips are down and there's a brawl or all out battle with a bunch of big bad guys, she wanted her husband's partner to be the biggest and badest guy on the force, not a woman. When your child is in a foxhole and the enemy is overrunnig their position, who do you want in that foxhole with your child?

The men who can't drag "200-pound buddy or stack 150lb ammo crates." don't pass muster. The standards have ALREADY been watered down. In boot camp, female recruits do push-ups with their knees touching the ground instead of their toes. How many other standards will be lowered to accomodate. I have no problem letting women serve as long as they can meet the required standards. I will gladly register for selective service if so required.....I wonder how many "feminists" can say the same.

How would a female fare in a hand to hand combat situation? A real bloody and desperate fight to the death between two individuals.

There is no equality, honor, or glory in war for the front line soldier. Those are reserved for politicians and high ranking officers behind desks. I see this as just another small piece in the puzzle of the current administration's agenda to weaken our country.

Isn't it heartbreaking and tragic enough that we see American young men coming home in body bags? Now we are going to see American young women come home in body bags. A high price for political correctness.

Several issues come to mind. If women can compete with men why are track and field events segregated by gender? I hope Sean Moore and fellow readers don't find this offending so here goes! Female plumbing is differant than men's. Women are more susceptible to Urinary track infections. If you are in an austere environment do you use the water to drink or wash your "plumbing " . In Vietnam for every one person taken out by the enemy three were taken out by disease! When women started doing construction on New York women had to sue to get more porta-lets. John MacCain was in a POW camp for six years! Would a women have been impregnated and forced to under go having a Child? There is a British women captured by Somali pirates who is suffering this fate! Is America ready to watch this?

ploy to take the "news headline hunger media" away from Hillary mistakes. People need to wake up to the fact that our federal government will do anything to maintain control and advance toward a totalitarian state. Kill its own citizens. Adults, children and the elderly. Lie, cheat and steal. Anything is possible to accomplish the MISSION. The government has real life "Jason Bounre's" who do what they are told, without moral question, for the good of their country.

We are led by the nose to "breaking news of a crazy women who shot her boyfriend". Glorifying perversion and violence.

We are led to story of the killing of American diplomats. Then told, what does it matter how they died.

We are led to stories of children killed in a school. Then told guns must controlled by the state.

Now it is Hillary's lead in the polls for 2016 when we just had the 2012 inauguration.

All of those issues are "what ifs" and "maybes" and most are valid concerns.

BUT.....why is nobody talking about registering ALL women for the draft?

In 1981 the Supreme Court decided that it WAS NOT discriminatory that we drafted men but did not register women for the draft. Their reason for this decision was that "the draft was intended to raise combat soldiers" and that because women were barred from being assigned to combat units there was no legal reason to draft them.

Well poof......that reason just disappeared. It's time to get every woman over age of 18 down to the draft board to get her little Democrat equality draft card.

"In the majority opinion, Justice William Rehnquist wrote "[t]he existence of the combat restrictions clearly indicates the basis for Congress' decision to exempt women from registration. The purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops. Since women are excluded from combat, Congress concluded that they would not be needed in the event of a draft, and therefore decided not to register them." Implicit in the obiter dicta of the ruling was to hold valid the statutory restrictions on gender discrimination in assigning combat roles."

The unintended consequences of this little grandstand equality show will eventually make all women eligible for the draft......or, to cover their butts, they will have to eliminate draft registration again for everyone.

And the public needs to realize that this has NOTHING to do with women really wanting to hump the boonies carrying a 100 lb.s of guns and gear with an infantry platoon. This is ALL about female OFFICERS that want to command a "combat" unti.....from the rear....over a radio.....and get the "combat commander" tick mark on their records for promotion purposes. That is ALL this is about. Nothing to do with what is best for the military.

But the "progressives" have made the call. Now it's time to pass out the draft cards.

and can tell you there is a big difference in "being in combat" and being an Infantryman. Having commanded seven units and some of them containing women, to include a Basic Training Battalion and the Training Command at Ft Jackson, SC, I can attest women cannot perform the duties of an Infantryman. There is this false impression that has developed as a result of watching current tv news that riding in a humvee and walking thru a village in Iraq and Afganistan is the front lines, in combat, and that's the life of an Infantryman. That is far from the normal life and mission of an Infantryman. Let's take the simple example of a road march. A man's stride is 30'' and a woman's is 24''. Quick march cadence is 120 steps a minute and road march is about 108. For easy math say road march is 100 steps per minute. In one minute a man has marched 100 steps x 30''= 3000'' or 250 ft. A woman marched 100 steps x24''= 2400'' or 200 ft. The woman has lost 50 ft of distance in one minute and 3000ft in one hour to the man. Therefore, the choice is to slow down to the woman's pace or have the woman speed up to the man's pace which she cannot maintain for any period of time. Also, one of the big problems marching is shin splits. Now on top of that you take an Infantryman and load him down with 100 plus pounds of equipment, weapons and ammo. For 150# Infantryman that's about 66% of his body weight. For a 120# woman thats about 80% of her body weight. She cannot do that for any period time. I have seen this on road marches. Women cannot keep up with men. In some of the commands I had, I had women officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted women in logistical and personnel positions and they did outstanding jobs. I even took my units to the field for exercises that would require different combat survivablity training to include survival, escape, and evasion. Some of the women did very well and as good as the men; but, this was not Infantry combat situations. Two female marine captains started the Marine Infantry officer course and both flunked out. One, who was in outstanding physical condition said her body broke down and began to consume itself. There is no army in the world that has women in its Infantry. The Isrealis tried it and stopped. None of the generals "recommending" this have been on the ground as an Infantryman or are scared of doing anything to harmed their careers. They are perfumed princes. This decision is all about "equality of promotion" opportunity for women and not what is best for the Army and the Country. I authored a study, which was conviently lost right after I retired, which tested women and men in the same basic training platoon. The result showed men were not physically pushed to their maximum because the pace of training had to be slowed to that of the female. If one goes and watches two men run a fire and movement course and then watch two women run the same course, they will see the difference in phyiscally ability, aggressiveness, and execution. People don't understand that the life of an Infantryman in combat is just one level above that of an animal. It's days, weeks, and months of surviving in the most brutal conditions imagineable and unless one has been there they have no real understanding of his life. Don't base your perception on what you see the soldiers doing in the mid-east as the total life of an Infantryman.

"On the one hand, there is no doubt some women today are as tough and capable as many men"........ Sorry, I cannot agree with that, in my youngest and strongest days, even with training, I could not, and would not have been able to fight a man, unless, maybe he was crippled, very small, and just a big ole' sissy! Today, most women join the military for financial reasons, and not always for Country, I don't care what anyone says! I agree with the commenters, but, I would like to ask specsta(of whom I hardly ever agree and don't on this), in what capacity does he think "women will do a great job"? And Angela, those feminist sisters, they aren't going to give up those $1,000.00 shoes! Oh, wait a minute, I bet that's what our government pays for combat boots! Do you think we should tell our "sisters"?

Corgimom, when I deployed for Desert shield Desert Storm we had several women in the unit reported in during the processing and got pregnant! They weren't treated like the rest of us, they were left behind!

Such extremist, all or nothing thinking. Women are not men; they aren't supposed to be. It doesn't make us less or more; it just makes us unique. If God had wanted us to all be alike, he'd have left Adam's rib alone.

As usual, specsta is pontificating on subjects of which he obviously has no direct knowledge.

The United States currently is light years ahead of Israel in the acceptance of women into combat roles. The same applies to promotions. And knowing that the US has a larger force, I'm speaking with regard to per capita representation.

As of only a year ago, Israel had only ONE female two star general. The US has and has had scores of females at flag rank. And on a per capita basis, the US military has opened many more positions to women. Not saying it's a good idea, because it certainly is not. Israel does it, in a limited fashion because they are forced to, or the nation will die at the hands of it's many enemies in the region. America does it strictly for political correctness.

The people doing this to our military know only the cloistered life of Washington. Liberals there and their sycophant supporters out in the hinterlands view our military as some interesting petri dish, in which to grow various social cultures, free of the constraints and controls of the science lab.

Then they reach a forced conclusion, the same conclusion they began with and declare, eureka!!

.. but in no way feel it's your responsibility. If this were Israel, maybe, but it's not and we do not and have never faced that situation.

I know because as an Army Ranger I had all or almost all of my humanity bred out of me. It was necessary given the knowledge of what I might and eventually did have to do. Most of us recovered and returned to a normal life. Some never could.

We should be able to know that our daughters and granddaughters will NEVER undergo that experience. Willingly or otherwise. If that becomes the norm, then civilization as we have known it is over.